Chapter 4: Syntax

Part V

Sentence relatedness (p. 150-)

Certain sentence types are systematically related to each other.

In language, there are structural differences which correspond in a systematic way to meaning differences.

Example: A yes-no question is related to a declarative sentence.

1. Declarative sentence: The boy is sleeping.2. Yes-no question: Is the boy sleeping?

PSG accounts for only one sentence type: affirmative, active, declarative sentences (肯定 , 主動 , 陳述句 )

PSG does not account for how certain sentence types are systematically related to other sentence types.1. Yes-no questions: The boy is sleeping. → Is the boy sleeping?

2. Wh questions: The boy is sleeping. → Who is sleeping?

3. Negative sentences: The boy is sleeping. → The boy is not sleeping.

4. Relative clauses: The boy is sick. The boy is sleeping. → The boy who is sleeping is sick.5. Emphatic sentences: The astronomer saw the quasar with the telescope. → With the telescope, the astronomer saw the quasar.

6. There sentences: There was a man on the roof. → A man was on the roof. 7. Passive sentences: The cat chased the mouse. → The mouse was chased by the cat.8. Imperative sentences: You get out of here. → Get out of here.

Transformational Grammar (TG) 變換律語法

TG is to capture the relationship (systematic relatedness) between the different structures below: affirmative, active, declarative sentences in

relation to negative, passive, imperative sentences and questions

Transformational rules 變換律

A yes-no question is derived in two steps:1. Step 1: The PS rules generate a basic structure

(a structure of the declarative sentence).2. Step 2: Aux movement (a transformational

rule) moves the Aux before the subject and produces the derived structure.

The boy is sleeping. → Is the boy ____ sleeping?

S

NP VP

Det N’ Aux VP move Aux

The N is V boy sleeping

S

Aux S

Is NP VP

Det N’ --- VP the N

boy V

sleeping

Deep structure vs. surface structure

1. Deep structures (D-structure; 深層結構 ) of sentences are the basic structures which conform to the PS rules.

2. Surface structures (S-structure; 表面結構 ) are the derived structures via the application of transformational rules.

3. Phonological rules, rules that determine pronunciation, apply to S-structures.

4. If no transformations apply, D-structures and S-structures are the same.

5. Transformations can alter PS trees by moving, adding, or deleting elements.

Structure-dependency (p. 152--)

Transformations act on structures without regard to the particular words that they contain. (T rules 只運作在結構

上 )

Examples: 1. The transformational rule PP preposing (介系詞詞組移前 ) moves any PP as long as it is immediately under the VP.

The puppy found the ball in the house. → In the house, the puppy found the ball.Note: The same rule does not apply to PP immediately under an NP. All the puppies in the house rushed out. → * In the house, all the puppies rushed out.

2. The agreement rule:The verb must agree with the subject; there is no limit to how many words may intervene in between. The subject is the NP immediately dominated by S. The agreement is mediated by Aux, which contains the tense and agreement features that match up the subject and the verb.

“= = = “ represents the intervening structure , which may be indefinitely long and complex.

Example (p. 153)

S

NP VP

Det N’ Aux VP present The N 3rd person singular guy = = = seems kind of cute

3. Yes-no questions: The boy who can sleep will dream. Will the boy who can sleep dream? *Can the boy who sleep will dream?

S

NP VP Aux VP The boy whois sleeping was V

dreaming

S

Aux S NP VP Was --- V the boy who is sleeping dreaming

Syntactic dependencies (p. 155)

(1) Sentences are organized according to two basic principles: constituent structure and syntactic dependencies(2) constituent structure: hierarchical organization of the subparts of a sentence(3) syntactic dependencies: The presence of a particular word or morpheme can depend upon the presence of some other word or morpheme in a sentence. Selection, the head-complement relation, agreement, and the aux-subject relation are kinds of syntactic dependencies.

Wh questions (p. 155 --)

(a) What will Max chase? (The verb “chase” lacks a direct object following it.)

(b) Where has Pete put his bone? (There is no PP phrase following the verb “put”.) (c) Which dog do you think loves balls? (There is no 3rd-person subject triggering an agreement

with the verb “love-s”.)Wh removed:(a) * will Max chase ___? (b) * has Pete put his bone ___?(c) * do you think ___ loves balls?

** The grammaticality of the above sentences depends on there being a wh phrase at the beginning of the sentence.

Explanation of the dependency: In each case the wh phrase originated in the position of the gap in a sentence with the corresponding declarative structure: (a) Max will chase who? (b) Pete has put his bone where? (c) You think which dog loves balls?

Wh questions are generated in three steps:Step 1: CP as d-structure with the wh phrase occupying an NP or PP positionStep 2: Move Aux adjoins the auxiliary to S.Step 3: Move wh moves the wh phrase to C

(complementizer).

D-structure of What will Max chase? CP

C S

NP VP N’ Aux VP N will V NP Max chase what

s-structure of What will Max chase? CP C S

What Aux S will NP VP N’ N --- VP Max chase ---

“do support” in wh questions

In a wh question, “do” is not part of the d-structure.

Move Aux is structure dependent; it moves Aux even when it contains only a tense feature. In this case, another T rule Do Support inserts do into the structure to carry the tense and agreement features.

In past tense, do and tense combine to yield did.

d-structure of Which dog did Michael feed?

CP

C S

NP VP

N’ Aux VP

N past V NP

Michael feed which dog

s-structure of Which dog did Michael feed? CP C S

which dog Aux S

past NP VP N’ do N --- VP

Michael V ---

feed

Long-distance dependencies in wh questions (pp. 157-158)

Move Aux can move the wh phrase outside its own clause.There is no limit to the distance that a wh can move. Examples (p. 158):1. Who did Helen say the senator wanted to hire ____?2. Who did Helen say the senator wanted the congressional

representative to try to hire ___?3. Who did Helen say the senator wanted the congressional representative to try to convince the Speaker of the House to get the Vice President to hire ____?

UG Principles and Parameters (pp. 158-159)

Universal Grammar (UG) provides the basic design for all human languages, and individual languages are simply variations on this basic design.Basic design (UG principles): All languages have (1) PS rules that specify the allowable d-structures., (2) phrases that consist of heads and complements, (3) sentences that are headed by Aux, specified for tense, agreement, and modality. In all languages with wh movement, the moved element goes to Comp (p. 159); Wh movement adhere to certain constraints. (p. 159)

Parameters (p. 554):

The small set of alternatives for a particular phenomenon made available by UG. For example, UG specifies that a phrase must have a head and possibly complements; a parameter states whether the complement(s) precedes or follows the head.(1) English: head initial; Japanese: head final(2) Dutch: Aux Movement, Main Verb Movement English: Aux Movement, Main Verb be Movement, Do Support Japanese, Chinese: the ph phrase does not move(3) Among wh movement languages, there is some variation. (pp. 159-160)